Phantom Feelings: A Collection of Drabbles
by Snea
Summary: Life is full of thoughts and feelings. But only a phantom feels Phantom feelings. Formerly titled Pain.
1. Pain

**88. Pain**

He loved her. He would always lover her, _had_ always loved her, _did_ love her. He loved her when they were children; he loved her when she'd dated Elliot and loved her when he dated Valerie. He'd always love her.

And he'd never been oblivious to it. No, he'd been afraid of it. Who'd ever heard of a fourteen year-old in love? Sure, in the old days it was common and expected, but not now, no. And his fear came to a head in their freshman year with the accident.

After that, every time they'd been called lovebirds, horror filled his chest with dread that some near-by ghost would hear it. But even after the ghosts had made the connection that hinted their relationship was not just platonic, he was still afraid. If he'd never been in the accident, more than likely he _would_ have told Sam how he felt like Tucker had been pestering him to. But now...

Now he wouldn't. Because he didn't want her hurt to get to him. The thought would always haunt him of her lying somewhere, beaten and in pain. So the question that burned in his throat whenever he saw her was going to remain there under lock and key. But even so...

It still hurt.

_fin_

**A/N**: This is what you get when you listen to "I Don't Love You" (My Chemical Romance) when you're writing. X#


	2. Family

**46. Family**

Sometimes he would just sit there and watch her. Amazed that he'd managed to get her. How would he be able to explain that his best friend was now his lover. His wife, his everything.

A cry from his side made him look over. Well, maybe not his everything. He leaned down in his chair to pick up the squalling child.

"Now what's the matter, sweet?" he asked. The small girl fisted her hands and rubbed her eyes, ridding her face of tears.

She looked up at him, dark green eyes sparkling as she grinned. "Nothing anymore, Grandpa." She grinned once more before hopping off his lap and running to catch up to her siblings and cousins.

Danny sat back into the chair and grinned himself as he watched Sam ruffle their son's hair as he held his newborn.

Oh yes, life was _good_.

_fin_


	3. Seeing Red

**86. Seeing Red**

It was everywhere. Coating it all in a sticky crimson that would have made her sick if she could smell it. Sam felt her stomach churning around her lunch, trying to reject it but she'd be damned before she let it. She didn't look to either side for Danny and Tucker in the fear that if she turned her head, she really _would_ lose her lunch.

Pressure on the side of her neck made her scream.

---

Danny could barely get in air for laughing. Tucker sat a seat over from, drenched in the pink, sticky sweetness that _was_ Sam's drink. She glowered at him from her own seat between the two before getting up and walking out of the theater.

Danny finally managed to stop laughing and gasped, trying his best not to burst into another fit of laughing lest the lack of oxygen turn him fully ghost.

"Dude, all I tried to do was scare her!"

Danny composed himself the best he could before answering, "I don't think movie night should be held outside of Sam's theater ever again–!" He couldn't hold the laughter anymore and doubled over in his seat as an usher came over to escort them out.

There was only so much laughter people could stand in the newest blockbuster horror movie.

_fin_

**A/N**: I always wanted to freak Sam out over movie. I mean, she already deals with ghosts and such already, so why have her freak out over that when I can scare her with something so mundane? XD


	4. Gray

_**Yin-Yang:**_1

**19. Gray**

There were always gray spots. There was never just black and white spots, but gray ones too. Because the world didn't just work in black and white, there were colors.

And then there was gray.

Yin and yang is comprised of black and white: black circle in white teardrop and white circle in black teardrop, each circling each other infinitely. Good and evil, male and female, life and death.

But then there's the lines between them that contain the black and the white. The lines made up of the two: twilight and dawn.

She treaded on those lines now, her confidence shattered. She'd been sure that it was possessing him, controlling him. She'd known for weeks but said nothing and let the suspicions build. And then he - _it_ - had done something she couldn't forgive.

_It had kissed her friend._

And that was the last straw.

"Hey! Hey, Sam! Wait up!"

The Goth turned to see the huntress run up to her, not even winded from the half-block she'd run. The look on her face was friendly, but the undertone lingering in her eyes said something different. She answered politely in any case, still on Cloud 9 from earlier that day.

"Hey, Valerie. What's up?"

Valerie looked at her, a brief look of pain crossing her features before hardening into determination. "I have to talk to you about Danny."

Sam titled her head, eyes narrowing, "About what?"

Valerie glanced around before taking Sam's arm and pulling her off to the side, allowing the couple behind them to continue before she spoke. "Danny's not who- well, _what_ - you think he is. He-"

"Danny's not dangerous if that's what you think," Sam interrupted sharply, yanking her arm from the ghost hunter's hand. "He's perfectly safe and has a bad reputation, is all. And if that's all you have to say to me, forget it, because I _don't_ need to hear it." She backed up as she spoke before whirling away sharply to continue home.

Valerie gaped after her, mouth hanging open before she closed it, hard. Cold fury boiled under her skin.

_It was controlling her!_

And possibly everyone else as well, but she'd seen it change, which probably broke whatever hold it seemed to have over everyone. But it didn't know about her. Not yet. It'd probably be on the look out tomorrow though. That wouldn't be a surprise.

So she'd been ready the next day. Right after the most tension-filled school day she'd ever experienced, she'd been ready. She'd been on guard all day, expecting it to show up from the shadows and off her at any time, witnesses or not.

After all, it'd probably just brainwash them again.

She'd waited in the trees, suited and ready, new gun in hand. The bell rang and students streamed out. It walked out the school doors, flanked by Sam and Tucker, the three of them alert but still talking as if nothing was happening. Too bad it didn't know her new toy didn't hurt _humans_.

Just the ghost in question, as it was ripped the human it was overshadowing, would feel any pain. A justified perception of the emotional turmoil the human was probably going through. Who wanted to be controlled, anyway?

She'd sprung from the trees, gun pointed and called it out in front of everyone. It stared at her in false surprise and confusion, using her friend's face as its puppet. Sam and Tucker followed its lead, subtly shifting to stand slightly in front of it.

But she was relentless in her pursuit.

"I know you're in there, Phantom! Let Danny go and come out now!"

Phantom stared at her incredulously with stolen blue eyes. "What? What are you talking about? I'm not a ghost, I'm a human!"

Valerie laughed coldly, gun still pointed, "Sure you are! That's what you want everyone to think. That's what you're _making_ them all think!" The crowd around them began to shift and murmur, quieting quickly.

Tucker stepped forward slightly, hands up in front of him as if he was trying to reason with her and not cover for the vile creature behind him. "Listen. Red, right? Danny's not a ghost. He's just a regular kid like us!"

Sam was next in the defense. "Yeah! I mean, he's barely making C's as it is! I mean, I don't think a ghost would put _that_ much effort into making itself seem normal."

"Hey!" Phantom looked at her, put-off by the statement. Sam rolled her eyes.

"Oh, please, Danny, you know it's true."

"And _I_ know what I _saw_! God, he's your best friend! How could the two of you not notice!" She tightened her grip on the gun. Now Sam and Tucker looked uncertain. Maybe she was getting through to them. "This is a special gun. It'll get Danny back, _before_ Phantom decided to possess him." She looked at Phantom, who was going wide-eyed, as she added, "Mister Masters, my supplier, made this specifically to expose you, Phantom." She shifted her thumb, removing the safety as a high pitched whine started up.

"And then it'll rip you from Danny, atom-by-painful-atom, at _your_ expense and _not_ Danny's," she finished.

Phantom went white, as did Sam, stepping backwards. Tucker paled and opened his mouth to say something. Sam made to stand in front of it, eyes hard and filled with something akin to hate. But all of this was too late.

_The gun stopped whining and Valerie pulled the trigger._

"NO!"

"STOP!"

Tucker and Sam both jumped as they shouted, trying to stop the beam.

But it passed through them like air through leaves.

_And struck ectoplasm like a bullet hitting flesh._

But it didn't do what Valerie was expecting it to - _told_ it would do.

Because Phantom didn't fly out and hit the stairs behind Danny.

_Danny_ flew and hit the stairs behind him, hands shooting to grab his chest.

And ectoplasm was not the only thing flowing from the gaping wound on Danny's chest.

_Blood was coursing from it._

Sam screamed, Tucker yelled, and the crowd around them panicked, most running from the scene. Valerie did none of these things. Instead, she stood and stared at the spectacle in front of her. The gruesome, bloody, _heart-wrenching_ scene in front her that _she_ had caused.

Sam was crouched on the stairs next to Danny, tears coursing down her distraught face as she cradled his head in her lap, quickly getting soaked in the fluid around her. Tucker was tearing his own shirt into strips, trying to tie his beret to the wound to stop the bleeding, the tears wetting his own face making his movements frantic.

But it was Danny who held her attention.

His face was screwed up in pain, tears running down pale cheeks as he struggled to keep breathing. His eyes were clenched shut but snapped open when Sam's hand touched his blood-spattered cheek. Even with all the pain that clouded his cerulean eyes, Valerie saw the love he held for the Goth at his side. The hand he managed to stroke the girls face with, only to leave a green glowing trail, shook violently. It clenched as he hissed in pain from Tucker's actions, making Sam sob as she grasped it and held it to her face.

Only the growing sound of sirens snapped Valerie out of it. She started to step forward, gun abandoned at her side and guilt in her throat, but a frosty voice drew her up.

"Don't come any closer or you'll regret it."

She stopped. Teal, hate-filled eyes glowered up at her from the technophile's face. He stood fluently, anger flowing from him as he faced her. "Leave _now_, Valerie, before I do something to you I _might_ regret." She backed up at the threat, fear crawling up her spine as Sam glared at her through tears.

She backed up slowly, the sirens becoming louder. She turned, starting to walk away when Sam hissed the last, venomous threat:

"You had better hope he lives."

And Valerie ran. She ran from the threat, ran from the scene, the blood.

But especially the _guilt_.

From that day forward, Valerie Gray's world matched her name. Because the world was no longer black and white in her eyes. No.

It was an infinite mass of gray.

And she hated it for it.

_fin_

---------

**A/N**: I'll let you decide how Danny did.


	5. 4:29 PM

_**Yin-Yang:**_2

**40. 4:29 PM**

_(list #2 prompt)_

Four twenty-nine PM.

The time she missed the sound of her phone ringing.

The time she'd forgotten to pick up Danny from Sam's on the way to the store.

_The time she would always regret dismissing as insignificant numbers._

Maddie Fenton didn't think to look at her cell phone after it rang, too busy soldering circuitry in her husbands newest ghost invention. To the end of her days she still didn't know why she didn't glance over at the screen. If she had, she wouldn't have heard the voice message.

As it was, the horror didn't hit for another half hour.

_"Mrs. Fenton? It's Sam. I-_ (there was a quiet sob behind her) _Danny...he-_ (now she sobbed into the phone) _He's hurt. Really bad. We tried to help him, but there was just so __**much**__!"_ Maddie started panicking, screaming for Jack to get the RV. She hadn't even noticed Tucker finishing the message, just that Sam was wailing and her son was hurt. _"He's in the OR. They said- they said he might not make it...but..._ (he choked, his voice cracking as he tried not to breakdown himself) _but he's here in Amity General...I guess we'll see you when you get here."_ The message ended and the phone disconnected. But Maddie didn't care, didn't notice.

She just knew that her little boy was in the hospital and she wasn't there with him.

_And she'd be damned if any traffic lights stopped her._

Because that phone call was the one thing that meant everything in the world to her.

It was her son.

And she was _not_ going to let him go without a fight.

_fin_


	6. Still

_**Yin-Yang:**_3

**42. Still**

_(list #2 prompt)_

_He was so still._

His chest barely moved under the white sheets, the blue gown, and the red and green soaked bandages. She knew that it was a side affect from his ghost half, but it made him look so...

_'No! He doesn't look like that! He's just sleeping, that's all. It's just the drugs they've got pumping into him. That's all, Sam, that's all.'_ She reached forward, brushing coal-black locks from his forehead. The contrast was disturbing her; the dark black against the ashen tone of his skin made the situation seem more morbid than it really was.

She sat back in the chair, staring at the screens around her. The only thing constantly telling her he really was alive, not the empty husk her fears forced her eyes to see. Tucker had gone to "get them something to drink," but Sam suspected that he couldn't stand seeing his best friend like this. Laid out on the sterile, cold, pitiful excuse the hospital called a bed. None of Sam's best efforts could get them to move Danny into a more private (comfortable) room in the ICU, a decision that required either patient consent or that of the guardians'.

She sighed, gently taking his cold hand in her warm one, carefully avoiding the IV. She glanced at the screens in the room, making sure they continued their various beeps and blips, that none of them began the dreaded whine she feared would start any second. She turned and stared at his chest again, making sure it was still moving. Hoping, _praying_, with all her might that it continued to go up and down, up and down.

Because _she wasn't sure what she'd do if it went still._

_fin_


	7. Gone

_**Yin-Yang:**_4

**100. Gone**

(_list #2 prompt)_

Gone. He was finally gone. She'd rid the earth of his filth, his _inhumanity_. He would harm no more and she'd made sure of it.

She didn't grin, or smile, or show even a hint of satisfaction as she pulled the trigger, green light flashing about and intermingling with his screams. He'd begged her, pleaded with her not to kill him, but she didn't care. He wasn't human.

_He was a ghost._

He was a ghost, and he'd ruined her life and the lives of others in her town. And he was sure as hell not about to continue doing so.

The last thing he'd ever see would be the cold, bitter eyes of his killer, overflowing with tears, guilt, and retribution.

Vlad Masters, Vlad Plasmius only moments before, slumped further onto the floor in his mansion study, green and red pooling from his chest and smeared on the wall behind him. Inert eyes stared at the tapestry rug from a lifeless face as Vlad's death rattle echoed in the room.

_The dull thunk of a gun hitting carpeted hardwood sounded as Valerie Gray walked from the room._

A white, bushy cat stared into the room from the doorway, green eyes sparkling vividly in the light shed from the still lit fireplace. The sight of it's master, slumped and dead on the floor, did not address the cat as particularly important. Simply...

_A glitch._

_fin_


End file.
